COMMERCIAL ASPECTS OF THE WORK 
good for the greatest possible number of 
people. 
A number of prominent fruit-growers with 
a keen eye to thrift approached Mr. Burbank 
one day with a proposition to form a corpora- 
tion or syndicate for the handling of one of 
his new plums, a particularly valuable one, in 
some ways the most important plum he had 
made. In a most captivating way the promo- 
ters of the scheme presented its attractions. 
The gentlemen interested had seen the vast 
possibilities in the absolute control of the fruit, 
and Mr. Burbank’s share in the profits to accrue 
was alluringly presented. The project was in 
no way dishonorable and it was distinctly 
business-like, but it was in direct opposition 
to Mr. Burbank’s life policy—to place no 
restrictions upon his productions but to get 
them running in the channels of the public 
at the earliest date possible. So the plum 
syndicate was never formed. 
When Mr. Burbank began placing his new 
creations on the market, after he had given 
up the nursery business, he stated in one of 
his lists: 
“The time, the care and the expense of 
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